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Tips & Strategies (20)

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3
Noble
I Got What I Wanted
27 of 28 gamers found this helpful
“A Gang of Outlaws”

I love getting to play the Outlaws when we have a good game of Bang! going. However, it seems that the headlong rush only works about 50% of the time. What I enjoy doing (and what makes it a little bit more of a strategic game) is try to find who the other outlaws are, then eliminate the other players before finishing off the Sheriff.

When playing with 5 or 6 players, there’s only one Deputy, and his job can be simplified in to “kill everyone but the Sheriff.” So, when playing, if you see someone blasting another player, go after him! Chances are, he’s the Deputy or the Renegade since the Renegade is trying to level the playing field and keep himself alive. Logic puts the Renegade on the Law side since the Outlaws have a 3-2 advantage.

If you can collectively eliminate the Deputy and the Renegade you should have no problem taking down the Sheriff with superior numbers!

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4
Noble
Freshman
25 of 26 gamers found this helpful
“Jose Delgado (Character)”

If you own BANG! the bullet, this minor glitch will be clarified, however if you own an earlier edition this house rule may be helpful.

The character Jose Delgado’s special power is the ability to discard a blue card on his turn, to pick up 2 cards from the deck. In the original game, no limit was placed on how many times a turn a player may use this power. The new rules state that Jose can only use this action twice per turn. This is to avoid having a player pick up an excessive amount of cards during his or her turn.

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9
USA
I play blue
Paladin
Master Grader
24 of 25 gamers found this helpful
“Patience Young Grasshopper”

The secret identity part of Bang! is not meant to last long, however for outlaws (particularly) and renegades (and sometimes even the deputy) I encourage you to prolong the mystery as long as possible.

Too often players are eager to start flopping down Bang! cards in the first round which quickly reveals what role they have. Instead, when the Sheriff starts shooting blindly to begin the game, if you are an outlaw, try to convince him you are a deputy through verbal manipulation. When it is your time to play, look to get down better weapons, horses, barrels and the like rather than actually firing your gun at someone (you can always apologize for not shooting by claiming a bad draw or occasionally perhaps even fire at an outlaw ally to “prove” your loyalty). The goal here is to keep the Sheriff and his actual deputy confused and consequently not working optimally as a team (and sometimes you can even get the sheriff to unload on his own deputy – which is hilarious).

Even more importantly though, rather than immediately painting a target on yourself, by slow-playing you will usually be left alone while you set up your hand. With a couple of unmolested rounds under your belt, you should be set to do some serious damage when you reveal yourself through an ambush (you typically have made yourself harder to hit as well — a good thing since retaliation is now on its way). By compiling perhaps a volcanic gun, a duel card, Indians etc. combined with a Bang! or two you can do serious damage to any target you decide to bring down.

The suprise attack also causes discombobulation in your target as they have to quickly readjust their thinking and plans – this frequently allows your new found allies to finish the job as the sheriff distractedly changes plans and splits his efforts.

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2
Reviewed My First Game
24 of 25 gamers found this helpful
“Outlaws”

So, you drew the outlaw… Your options:

Be an Outlaw!!!

1. Shoot the sheriff as soon as you can. This lets the other outlaws know where you are and they are likely to follow suit in a barrage of bullets.

2. Play cards that impact the entire group if you can’t reach the sheriff.

3. Make the sheriff discard. Less cards for him is less ways he can resist your attacks.

4. If you can’t reach the sheriff, shoot whoever you can that has shot at another player and not played any mass impact cards (gatling, indians, etc…). If you kill another outlaw, well, they should have let you know who they were. It is unlikely that a deputy would play gatling or indians before playing a bang card on their turn.

Pretend
1. Shoot people next to you. This leaves it open. Are you an outlaw who is just trying to kill others? Are you a depute doing his job? Are you a renegade trying to thin the herd? Almost everyone with any job will normally resort to this, but it’s important to consider the message you are sending. If you get any Indians or similar cards that impact everyone, you should consider using them “after” shooting someone next to you. Don’t lead with those because it shows that you have no regard for anyone else, including the sheriff. A deputy would not likely lead with that sort of card.

2. Pretend to be a deputy and shoot people who have outed themselves. This will leave doubt as to your job. Make sure to act happy if you kill an outlaw and get more cards. Remember, if you manage to do your job, all outlaws (even dead ones) win.

3. Shoot whoever others have targeted until they are dead. If you target the same person as another player and don’t let up until they are dead, there is no way to know what your intentions are.

4. Think about the cards you play and how they make you look. If you have to make everyone discard a card and you are trying to not look like an outlaw, consider having the sheriff discard a card from his hand at random. This suggests that you don’t want to disadvantage him by having him lose one of the items he has in play, but it is quite likely that a card in his hand is even more important as part of his next turns strategy.

5. If the sheriff shoots you, or makes you lose a card, make sure to not seem overly upset about it. Remember your demeanor. You should only seem upset when players other than the sheriff act on you. Make sure there are visible differences in your reaction.

This game is all about psychology… Think “how does this make me look”, or just blast away until you are surrounded by corpses.

Just some tips, hope they help

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2
13 of 13 gamers found this helpful
“Get into character!”

After everyone selects their character card go around the table and introduce your character and a made up backstory that includes your special ability. Extra fun with accents!

Example for Rose Doolan,power to see everyone at -1 at all times. “I’m Rose Doolan, owner of the local hotel and bar. I know everything that goes on in this town and keep a close watch on all the trouble, no one escapes my keen eye and I see everyone at -1.”

It is silly but fun. It can also be a good ice breaker when playing with new people.

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8
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
Mythic Kingdoms Backer 2020
Platinum Supporter
Advanced Reviewer
34 of 37 gamers found this helpful
“Upgraded components!”

After my friends and I played Bang! a few times and decided we liked it, I thought to myself that while the cardboard cutout bullets that are used as health markers in the game were nice… the game could use a little extra something! So I went out and picked up spent bullet casings to use as the health markers. It’s not necessary for the game to be played, but it adds a little extra flair to this old west shootout game and it’s cool to hear all that clinking brass as people toss their shells into the center of the table as they take hits. 🙂

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9
USA
I play blue
Paladin
Master Grader
24 of 26 gamers found this helpful
“Wanted: Characters”

Like perhaps all games, Bang! is at its best when everyone at the table enthusiastically embraces the game’s theme. Few themes have more potential for fun and frivolity than Spaghetti Westerns making Bang! a great choice on game nights. The designers of Bang! helped the odds of people getting into the act by providing many different characters to play with humorous names and recognizable personality types.

According to the rules, you shuffle the character cards and deal the character cards out randomly. While that works, I suggest allowing people to select the character they want to play. Doing so provides some excitement as people all scramble to look them over and snag the one they like the best. Much more importantly though, by getting to select the role they play, people are much more likely to fully adopt the role and play it out.

Getting dealt some character whose personality (or abilities) are not attractive to you can start the game off on a bit of a sour note (especially for some). On the other hand, getting to proudly read off who you selected seems to encourage a festive spirit that is contagious.

The next time you play Bang! allow folks to choose who they want to play and watch how folks are much more willing to bring the characters to life.

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9
USA
I play blue
Paladin
Master Grader
23 of 25 gamers found this helpful
“Best of Two”

I’ve suggested before that allowing players to select their character can aid in the enjoyment of the game. However, especially with new players this can lead to analysis paralysis in getting the game started. A better option then especially with new players is to deal two character cards to each player and then allow them to pick the one they like best from the two they were dealt. It adds a fun element to the game for experienced and non-experienced alike, allows for an embrace of the role, and avoids “ap” — Bang!

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8
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
Mythic Kingdoms Backer 2020
Platinum Supporter
Advanced Reviewer
35 of 39 gamers found this helpful
“The sombrero with the tin star!”

Of all the colorful characters featured in the game Bang! El Gringo is one of the absolute best! This is because of his hand denial ability… whenever El Gringo gets hit, he draws a card from the hand of the opponent who hit him. When you’re only holding a limited number of cards, that becomes a very powerful ability. To balance his ability out, El Gringo only gets 3 hit points which makes him go boom a lot easier and obviously makes you think twice about absorbing several hits, but despite this he can still capitalize on his ability. He changes how his opponents have to play just about all the offensive cards in the game. Volcanic, Indians, Gatling all suddenly lose their punch against El Gringo since the power of those cards is to draw out misses and pummel your opponent with multiple cards in hand. If you get a barrel in front of him, you open up all sorts of strategic options. Now you can opt not to use the barrel to start his hand denial ability but have it as a backup defense. Beer also becomes a particularly useful card because you can purposefully take additional hits knowing you can drink away the pain. Lastly, if El Gringo gets the tin star and is the sheriff… watch out! He’s now back up to 4 hit points which gives him some protection from dynamite, and has the extra hit point for card denial and can really start to manipulate the table!

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5
Novice Reviewer
Novice Advisor
Knight
Baron / Baroness
27 of 30 gamers found this helpful
“Dual Wielding Pistols”

We play that you can hold 2 pistols at a time (discarding both if you play a two handed gun like a Gatling or a Rifle). Then, if you have 2 pistols out, you can play 2 Bang! cards per turn.

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7
Advanced Grader
Novice Reviewer
Knight
22 of 25 gamers found this helpful
“General Store”

One house rule that my friends and I play with, is when someone uses the general store the cards are lined up as normal and the person who played the card gets first pick.

However, after the first pick has been made, everyone grabs a card they want at the same time. This adds more chaos and hilarity to the game.

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7
Master Grader
Novice Reviewer
Amateur Advisor
I'm Completely Obsessed
26 of 30 gamers found this helpful
“Sitting Duck”

As with most card games, don’t empty your hand unless you absolutely have to. Once you do, you become a sitting duck with no defense or bluff ability. If you are carrying cards, you won’t stand out as much as an easy target. No cards means you can’t defend yourself or attack others. At least keep up appearances that you are dangerous.

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6
The Gold Heart
The Silver Heart
The Bronze Heart
“Knife + Punch modification”

In the expansion, Knife and Punch have a range of 1, but can be extended (like Panic), with Binoculars or Scope. This logically makes no sense! Our house rule is that Knife and Punch are always limited to a range of 1, regardless of your modifier cards!

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6
The Gold Heart
The Silver Heart
The Bronze Heart
“Sean Mallory - Professional Card Hoarder!”

My sister used this strategy against the Sheriff once.

As Sean Mallory, you can carry 10 cards regardless of your health. She started collecting cards, and taking NO actions on her turn, so as to not give away her role (Outlaw). Then, in one fell swoop, she destroyed the Sheriff, who was unable to survive the assault!

It’s a cruel, but effective Wild West strategy…

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8
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
Mythic Kingdoms Backer 2020
Platinum Supporter
Advanced Reviewer
27 of 33 gamers found this helpful
“Crazy Harry's distance cousin”

When you play Lucky Duke… the first thing you need to remember is, he’s all but impervious to the dreaded stick of dynamite! His ability allows him to draw two cards whenever he has to “draw” and choose one. This means that for cards like dynamite and jail that say “do X if you draw a heart, or club, or whatever” most times you can choose when you want it to trip. However, before you start chucking explosives around, try and get a barrel or a mustang in play to help defend him once your enemies take aim at you for your crazy harry ways. That being said, once you do have some form of defense in place, play the dynamite every single change you get.

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5
Novice Reviewer
Novice Advisor
Knight
Baron / Baroness
27 of 33 gamers found this helpful
“New Character: The Priest”

I read about this and tried it in our group to great success, the games last a bit longer (which was a problem in our group).

New Character: The Priest (starts with 4 life)

Special Ability: Any player (excluding yourself) may give you 2 cards to gain 1 life on their turn. Similarly, if a player is about to die (excluding yourself), he or she may give you 2 cards to prevent death (like Beer).

Try it out, it’s fun!

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5
Novice Reviewer
Novice Advisor
Knight
Baron / Baroness
31 of 39 gamers found this helpful
“Meta-gaming as the renegade!”

I’ve played a lot of Bang! (too much haha) and play with pretty savvy people – so usually drawing the Renegade card is a auto-loss (I think I’ve won with the Renegade twice in 20-30 times as him).

What I’ve started to do now as the renegade is to set my own win conditions – either go flat out for the sheriff or the outlaws. If I do it, then I consider it a win in my mind.. otherwise it’s a loss the same as if I played the Renegade the “right” way 🙂

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7
US Army Service
I play green
38 of 50 gamers found this helpful
“An easier chance to win for the Renegade.”

Since the renegade can have a hard time winning after the outlaws are dead, we have a house rule that the renegade has to just kill the sheriff to win once the outlaws are eliminated.

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4
I Am What I Am
23 of 30 gamers found this helpful
“A Bird in Hand”

With a surplus of different characters for almost any sized game, there comes a time when you draw two characters who both simply, suck eggs. This house rule we made allows a player who doesn’t like their 2 choices of characters to draw a third. However, the third MUST be played as your character.

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5
Norway
BoardGaming.com Beta 2.0 Tester
Copper Supporter
23 of 44 gamers found this helpful
“Bang! the drinking game.”

Replace your standard health measuring device with shot glasses. One glass for each point of health. Whenever you take a point of damage you empty one shot glass. Keeping with the theme I recomend your favourite brand of whiskey. And remember people, please drink responsibly.

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